4:00 - 4:05 p.m. - Announcements (5 minutes)
· Meeting minutes for June 10 are motioned for approval. Hearing no objections, the set of minutes is approved.
· John Shaw has served as the ITAC coordinator for the past year. His watch has ended and now Logan Roger's watch commences. We thank John Shaw for his service.
· Welcome, Logan.
· Jerry Lynch of the University of Michigan has come to Duke to become Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering.
4:05 - 4:35 p.m. - Co-Lab/Studio Return to Campus Plans, Sandra Bermond, David Bryan (20-minute presentation, 10-minute discussion)
What it is: Sandra Bermond and David Bryan will be joining ITAC to present upon the return to campus plans for the Co-Lab and Studio/MPS/VR. Sandra will highlight the number of classes, tracks, and processes for sharing and enrolling in these courses, as well as updates on how hybrid will be integrated and what new courses are on the horizon. David will go over new equipment available in the studios, as well as talk through the vision of VR at MPS over the coming year and beyond.
Why it’s relevant: The courses and resources provided by the Co-Lab/Studios are a key component in the continuing education of the Duke community as a whole. Supplying individuals with the opportunity to learn and acquire new skills outside the traditional classroom, as well as providing makerspaces for creative students to bring vision to form, these efforts are critical in further distinguishing Duke as a leading environment for servicing these sharp minds.
Evan introduced Sandra Bermond and David Bryan to talk about the work the Co-lab/Studio has done the past few months and will continue to do.
To start Sandra started to talk about the Roots program. The program has grown over the years. However, with covid, the registration to roots classes has decreased. Although registration numbers have been low, the program is still afloat, said Sandra. The current roots class offerings are organized into tracks. There are about 8 classes per track on average with other tracks having fewer classes due to the availability of in-house expertise. There are also some offerings of tutorials and exercises like classes. Despite the small numbers of registrations, people do like the program and are enrolling in multiple sessions/classes. About 50% of users take 2 to 4 workshops per semester and some that take more. Satisfaction rates are high. Users also said that they would recommend roots classes to others.
When Co-Lab was created, it was meant as a co-curricular activity to help people develop skills outside of courses but as time has gone on, co-lab has been integrated and involved into the academy side of things. Co-lab has been working with Computer Science and more recently with Pratt School. Students are taking classes not only for personal skill development but connected to their classwork.
This semester there are 88 workshops (60% in-person and 40% online). There is a mix of afternoon and evening classes. The team is also welcoming two new instructors, Anni Yan and Kevin Thies. The team is also working on creating more asynchronous content.
David now takes the stage to talk about Co-Lab studio updates. David briefly talked about a few points regarding historical data comparing the past August months of the years 2019 and 2020 and 2021. David said that right now things are trending towards pre-pandemic usage. Using submitted print jobs as metrics, there has been a 20% dip in usage for this August vs August 2019. August 2020 saw a 55% dip in usage compared to August 2019. The team is responding by returning to pre-covid operating hours this semester.
David then introduced the new hire, Kevin Thies. David mentioned that Kevin is the new makerspace Technician who will be primarily located in TEC and Ruby buildings. Kevin is working alongside Mitchell Greene. Lastly, David mentioned that Kevin has received praise from students and that he is happy with Kevin being on board.
Regarding Co-Lab studio updates, David mentioned some new equipment has been acquired. A second waterjet cutter along with a unified 3D printer fleet. The team is doing this kaizen approach of continuous small improvements. One way the team is accomplishing this is by organizing and labeling tools. On the one hand, this helps the team to stay organized but also helps with noticing if something is missing. David said that this approach of improvement is the direction the team is heading. The team is also working on rolling out more project samples particularly useful for the less experienced users who might come to space without a project in mind. The hope is that this will keep users coming back.
Regarding MPS updates, David introduced and turned the presenion over to Dave Zielenski where the team is focusing on VR efforts. To continue talking about MPS updates, DavidZ talked about new equipment.
The team has 4 nodes for tethered VR located in MPS. $ HTC Vive Pro 2 headsets. The team also has demonstrations of technology, for example, VR demos, games, etc. Some units can be loaned out for academic purposes. Lastly, DavidZ covered collaborations with different teams, CampusRec, Student Life, August Wendell – grant project, and other conversations with other teams (facilities, nursing, etc.).
Q/A:
John board asks:
Q: Do we have a medium-term goal for the number of our overall offerings that might be async?
And Mark Palmeri asks:
What is the value add of the async content relative to the other online courses already available on many of these topics?
A: Evan answers both of these questions by saying that the goal for asynchronous content is not that there is a quantitative goal right now, but the team is trying to create offerings that benefit the existing workshops or needs that the team hears about. To Mark’s point, there is a lot of great content out there already and some things we have done in the past years involve putting together asynchronous workshops around existing content. We are not trying to reinvent the wheel but
building something that uses our environment that walks people through how to do it is worthwhile.
Q: Do we have stats on users from different divisions?
A: Sandra and David both answer that don’t currently have access to the data showing what school someone is coming from, but Evan chimes in that we do capture that data and he will make sure it is accessible to both.
4:35 - 5:00 p.m. - Duke Learning Innovation New Academic Year Update, Shawn Miller, Michael Greene (15 minutes presentation, 10 minutes discussion)
What it is: Just when you thought it was safe to assume Fall 2021 would be mostly a return to ‘normal,’ it looks like we’re going to be in for a bumpy start. Shawn Miller and Michael Greene will share how Learning Innovation is modifying DLI’s pandemic Flexible Teaching effort and highlight some of the recent and upcoming changes and updates to Duke’s learning technology ecosystem to better serve learners this semester and beyond.
Why it’s relevant: With the ever-changing landscape of return to campus and hybrid learning, DLI's efforts are key to providing the Duke student body and the Faculty instructing them a path for success and sustained development.
Shawn Miler started the presentation by talking about the topics this presentation will be about.
Flex teaching and classroom anxiety
Sakai updates
State of piazza
Other learning technologies
Shawn started to talk about flex teaching and classrooms concerns. Shawn mentioned that for the first few weeks there has been some certainty and anxiety. And especially now with an uptick in students and quarantined and an option for Trinity faculty to teach remotely for two weeks. Shawn mentioned that they sympathized with the frustrations of the faculty. And especially the students. And they also realize that unexpected shifts from one mode of teaching to the other is less than ideal. And they also realize that the classroom experience is only a very small part of the overall Duke experience. Students are looking to have while attending Duke. On the flip side, in many ways, we are much more prepared and much more knowledgeable as a community. Said Shawn.
Next, Michael Greene started to talk about Sakai updates. The recent Sakai updates highlight improve inclusivity and accessibility of Sakai. One of those changes is the ability to set personal pronouns and record a name pronunciation in the profile tool. Another change deals with replacing the font, color, and background color options in the rich text editor with pre-created styles to ensure that content will be accessible when read while offering flexibility.
Regarding the state of Piazza, Piazza is no longer supported by learning innovation which also means it’s not integrated with Sakai or kits. However, faculty/departments may use free or paid versions at their discretion. Being that this tool is being discontinued from formal support, this leaves a big gap in this area. The team has been running two projects. The first project is a pilot for a discussion called Ed Discussions. The other pilot is called Sakai Conversations.
Michael then discussed a few items relating to upcoming Sakai updates.
· Course site retention – 5-year retention policy. Not implemented last year due to covid.
· TA permission Adjustment - plan to reduce the TA role permissions heavily to something appropriate for undergraduate TAs
· Elevate GSI to instructors - This is in line with the advice we’ve given for years when a faculty runs into issues with their TA’s, which is to make them an instructor on the site.
· upgrade to v21 on December 20th or 21st
Regarding other learning tech updates, Michael talked about
· Hypothes.is pilot has concluded but a small license is being negotiated.
· Labster pilot is going on, but it ends in December. However, not planning to renew.
· The gradescope integration with Sakai improves roster/grading workflows.
· Panopto integration with Zoom and Sakai - the new Panopto integration with Sakai allows faculty to record and share video with their students much easier than before. The additional integration with Zoom can automatically move recorded Zoom meetings to your course Panopto folder giving you and your students a single place to find all your class' video content.
Lastly, Michael showed a slide detailing a few gaps and challenges. Due to time constraints, there wasn’t much time to go into details. Taken from the slide here are those gaps and challenges that the team hopes to talk about and discuss with ITAC members at a later time:
· Annotating many types of content
· How to license and integrate tools at a small scale
· Setting and communicating timelines for sunsetting tools
· Growing overlap in functionality across edtech
· Offering non-credit or co-curricular learning experiences.
Q. John Board – Which permissions have been deemed inappropriate for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs)? At present, we treat UTAs and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) as interchangeable.
1. Michael Greene – You can change permissions to and you can customize the size to fit your needs. There has been a concern, particularly around undergraduates grading other undergraduates. There is also Gradescope. We are still discussing how to implement these things and I would love to talk a little bit deeper about your use case.
2. Shawn Miller – These issues are going to get discussed with faculty again before being technically changed. The Provost’s Office will coordinate some discussion.
Q. Mark Palmeri – Are we susceptible to buying into Gradescope and then, having them pull a Piazza with their business model? Gradescope overhead is great to start using, butpivoting away would be a real mess.
1. Michael Greene and Shawn Miller - Piazza was always free and then, out of nowhere Piazza introduced a radical pricing shift and neither party could come close to the position of he other. With Gradescope, there was always a contract and it is unlikely that Gradescope would do something like Piazza did.
2. Evan Levine – JoAnne Van Tuyl brings up a great point about iTunes U in the chat. (JoAnne made iTunes recordings for massive numbers of vocabulary. At the time, it was hard to imagine iTunes
U disappearing.) Technology is constantly evolving but at this point, Duke’s relationship with Gradescope seems stable.
Q. David MacAlpine - Teams don’t utilize the tools that are being built that are supposed to make classroom technology easier. An example of this is the Kits interface for bringing lots of tools together at once and use the same roster. I get the Sakai Panopto box all set up in kits and then, I get a classroom activated for Panopto outside of Kits.
1. Michael Greene - This is an issue that is being worked on by Todd Stabley, Richard Mitchell, and Crystal Martine.
2. Evan Levine – I'll make sure that this issue gets back to the team. If there are a variety of configuration options, then we’ll make sure this is communicated.
3. Ed Gomes – I think it is important for people to understand what’s available to them because I’m not sure that they’re aware that they even have the authority to do certain things.
Q. Victoria Szabo – Where do we start first: Kits or Sakai?
1. Michael Greene – Either is supposed to work. When you add a Sakai site into Kits, the integration is supposed to recognize what you just did and connect appropriately. Michael asks if Victoria would be willing to share her site so the logs can be examined and Victoria agrees.
5:00 pm - 5:30 p.m. - Service Desk Support Update, Rodney Cozart (20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes discussion)
What it is: IT Service Desk Manager Rodney Cozart will join us to walk through the Service Desk's evolving efforts to meet the needs of the Duke community and the large range of support and assistance demanded by the current environment. Rodney's presentation will focus on new processes like queless for Covid protection, the changes in location for BTS and the number of students interacted with and what has been covered, as well as the various satellite locations.
Why it’s relevant: The Service Desk provides round-the-clock service to ensure that the technical support needed from staff, students, and faculty are met in an expeditious and fulfilling manner. Developing new strategies as a result of learnings from the past academic year has allowed the Service Desk to better meet the needs of those they support and enact and sustain more user-friendly and effective systems.
Rodney Cozart speaks about three phases of activities for the Service Desk in engaging the new Fall semester:
• Preparation
• Hired 24 SWAT (student workers)
• Moved full-time staff out of American Tobacco Campus; the Service Desk was the first to move into the Power House so employees would be settled in before back-to-school
• Pandemic specific
• Created WarpWire training videos instead of having a training boot camp; this has the added benefit of being able to point mid-semester new hires here as well
• Hired 25 SWAT workers via Zoom interviews over the summer and included a waiting list of 4 workers to fill attrition
• Had to adjust to the quarantine time needed for returning students
• Move-in
• Although back to school is a very busy time for the Service Desk, tickets numbers have remained relatively the same compared to last year
• The Service Desk staff and SWAT support a walk-up desk during the move-in week at Lilly Library for incoming freshmen so they don’t have to travel to West campus to The Link
• Pandemic specific
• QLess software was introduced to reduce students being in non-socially distanced lines for walk-up support. The software sends notifications to students when it’s time to return to the Service Desk. Looking to keep using this software going forward.
• Moved to Brody Gym instead of the usual Marketplace to have move space for social distancing;
• This also provided enough space so the Computer Store could be there as well
• All laptops from the Computer Store has OIT contact information including QR codes
• In prior years, averaged 500 students; this year, there were 1,100 students
• The first week of classes is the busiest week of the year for the Service Desk.
• Typically, the Service Desk sees standard troubleshooting questions including: EPrint, Sakai, WiFi configuration, Mobile Duke card
• Possbilty pandemic specific, this year we saw higher volume of laptops needing repair
• What’s next?
• Use the chatbot that CoLab worked on
• Continue finessing Qless and encouraging students to make appointments
• Three stations planned at The Link for express help (quick interactions):
• Pickup equipment station, Drop-off equipment station, Computer diagnostic station
• Moving Saturday hours at The Link to Sunday as there is much more demand on Sunday
• Continue adding features to web checkout
• Adding photos to web checkout so students to eliminate student identification time
• Other updates
Q. John Board – I've looked at data for Saturday hours where we were having 2 or 3 people per day and some of the questions were, “where is the restroom?” So, this makes sense to move the hours to a time with higher demand.
A: Rodney Cozart – Yes, John, you are correct about those numbers.
Chris Meyer posts instructions and information for Qless: https://oit.duke.edu/help/articles/kb0034431 https://qless.com/